Quartet
by Oparu
Summary: Regina, Maleficent, Emma and Killian all chaperone Henry's first prom and work out how the four of them will function together going forward. (Captain Swan and Dragon Queen)


**Notes**

Part of me thinks the series could end this way, Henry with his two moms, a step-pirate and a step-dragon, so I wanted to try it out.

Mal's fingers glow, and she drags them through her hair, forming tight ringlets that she pins to the side of her head. She straightens up in front of the mirror, her corset so tight that it could have been carved out of stone, like her skin in the soft light.

"What is this called again?"

"Prom," Regina answers, leaning over her shoulder to fix her own lipstick. "It's a right of passage. The first ball the students attend, and it's nice. There's a theme."

"The Victorians, as you said." Mal stands from her chair, flattening her dress. The heavy fabric swishes down, complete incongruent with what Regina's accustomed to her wearing. Her own dress is odd, deep red, pulled back into a bustle. She's worn heavy skirts before, but this is just a little different. Like she's stepped from a different book.

"Henry and Violet thought it might be fun to embrace another realm for the theme, and since they're on the Prom committee–" Regina shrugs. It's better the the fairy tale theme every prom had during the curse. The dresses and suits she's seen glimpses of have been lovely.

I do wonder where he got that from," Mal says, leaning in to kiss Regina's cheek. "I enjoy a ball."

"Since when?"

"You're going to be there." Mal grabs her shawl from the bed and swings it around Regina's shoulders, pulling her close. "That improves my enjoyment of anywhere I go."

* * *

"And the dinner with Regina and the dragon?" he asks, straightening his cravat.

Turns out Victorian dress isn't that different from what he remembers from his period of England. A little less formal, but he got into his outfit without in trouble, Emma's dress was confounding enough that she gave up and used magic. Poofing herself into it like she's her own fairy godmother seems like cheating, but the laces were so complicated, and Hook only has one hand.

"We'd like you and the dragon to get to know each other better. You're going to spend a lot of time together, be involved in some of the same discussions. You have the same position in Henry's life."

"As the paramours of his mothers, you think we should learn to be friends?" He smirks, eyeing the way her corset shoves up her breasts. Emma glances down, because she really hadn't looked but there they are. Okay, he can look. They look nice. It's almost worth only sort of being able to breathe.

"You don't have to be friends," she starts but he laughs.

"I have no quarrel with the dragon, she has no problem with my checkered past as a pirate, she enjoys rum and she only tried to kill me once, that's an excellent foundation for a friendship, considering the population of this town." He draws her closer, again smirking at her cleavage in this damn dress. "I'm sure it will be a pleasant evening."

Standing on her tiptoes, she kisses him, then rests her head against his forehead. "Good."

* * *

Hook reaches for her coat, politely removing it from her shoulders to hang it up in the closet at the restaurant. Emma and Regina go ahead, looking for Henry and Violet before they take their table.

"Thank you."

"I hear we're to be on our best behavior, thought I might get it off to a good start." Hook smiles at her when she turns around, and good, he understands the pressure that's been placed on both of them.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Maleficent returns his grin. "I don't foresee any difficulty. I've never wanted to kill you while I've been alive."

"And I appreciate that." He hangs his own coat and offers his arm. Someone has taught him manners. Mal smiles and takes it, letting him lead her through the crowd of teenagers swarming the normally very fine restaurant.

"As someone who has also been given a second chance that I did not expect, I appreciate how strange this must be. You were ready to move to the glowing white afterlife, weren't you?"

He pauses, and his expression shifts. There's sympathy in his voice, soft and surprising. "Did you see it as well?"

She pauses, because he will, of course, pull out her chair. Emma and Regina notice them and the table but continue speaking to Henry and Violet. "A warm welcoming light, bidding me welcome?" Mal asks, looking up at him while he's still close.

He nods. "Aye, did it come to you, even in that cave?"

She stares at her napkin, swallows the lump in her throat and nods. "I couldn't go without knowing what happened to my child."

Hook takes his seat, on her left so the metal he uses for a hand rests on the table near her own fingers. "Now you know she's safe."

Nodding again, she blinks back her tears. "That's the most anyone could ever ask from a second chance."

Regina and Emma arrive, smiling and talking lightly about Henry's suit and how nicely it matches Violet's dress. She has plenty of time to dry her tears, and reaches for her napkin, but Hook nudges her, providing his handkerchief instead.

Regina sits beside her, still listening to Emma while she regards the handkerchief and the silent exchange of Mal handing it back. Her hand finds Mal's on the table and she squeezes her fingers, not knowing why the teras exist, but sensitive to them all the same.

* * *

After dinner, across town in the magically decorated school gymnasium, the music finally shifts away from the that of the Realm without Magic, the pulsing electronic mayhem of what Henry and his friends seem to like, and settles onto a waltz. Emma laughs as she's stolen away by her father for a waltz and Henry bows politely to Regina, taking her for a turn. That leaves him and the dragon, and certainly in all her years, she must have learned to dance.

He offers his hand, and she tilts her head. She smiles slowly, and it spreads to her eyes, which really are far less reptilian than he feared. "Care to dance?"

"I'd be delighted." She rises from her chair with the kind of grace he'd expect from the lover of the queen, and slips into his arms.

They manage one turn of the floor without stepping on each other's feet, and he shifts, changing his steps, finding the more complicated path, and she follows, beaming at him.

"Did you learn to dance on the deck of your ship?"

"You'd be surprised what one can pick up over the years."

"I've found sailors can be some of the more educated people that I've met, having seen so much."

Now it's his turn to tilt his head in surprise. "I don't recall hearing of many ports that had seen a dragon."

She shrugs, her blonde curls bouncing, soft on her shoulder. "Sure you must have ranged to the far north in your travels? The Norsemen, with their ancient ships, I suppose you could call them my kin."

Those ancient pirates? He raises his eyebrows. Emma said Maleficent was an ancient creature, but he did not expect her to have origins so close to his own. "I've heard of them to be sure, but they were long gone by my time."

She nods, sharing another sad smile. "As your own family must be."

"Aye, all but Emma, and the boy."

Maleficent glances across his shoulder and Regina and Henry. He twirls her out, watching her return to his arms in a swirl of satin. "Then we have that in common as well."

They finish the dance, leaving their discussion of it behind to concentrate on the footwork, pushing each other to more complicate steps, faster, with more spins. He's never considered himself a great dancer. David has far smoother feet, but in this room, beneath the twinkling magic, for a moment, the pirate and the dragon find a rhythm. By the end, they're both laughing, her hair falling free from the side of her head.

He kisses her hand, she curtsies, bobbing her head. Regina and Henry descend on her, teasing her for never mentioning she liked to waltz. Emma grabs him, pulling him into the next dance, which seems to only require that one sways back and forth in place.

"What was that?"

"The dragon knows the waltz."

"I saw that, and you. You didn't tell me."

"I didn't tell you what, Swan?"

She kisses him. "That you liked to waltz like that."

"A moment of frivolity. It seems we both have a competitive side, the dragon and I."

"Good."

"Good?"

"We're going to spend a lot of time together, raising Henry, you and I, Regina and Maleficent. It's easier if we're friends."

He chuckles, and lifts her hand to kiss it. Across the room, Regina and Maleficent seem equally pleased as they speak with Henry. "I believe our odd little family shall be just fine."

Emma returns his smile, then kisses him, her lips full of promise.


End file.
